Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-05-18
HE HAD HIS REVENGE.
A Thrilling Story of Life In Early Ten.
snessee Setilements-The Tale of q
Boys Long Studied Vengeance.
How the Early Settlers of Nashville and
Chattanooga Had to Fight for
Their Homes and Lives.

IGuOlS
outpost of civilization, and for many
years they waged an unrelentine
war upon the whites. Time
and again Sewer invaded their strong
holds at and near Chattanooga, burned
their towns, destroyed their crops and
drove the bravest of their warriors like
frightened deer into the mountains. But
they could not be subdued until Sewer
could discover their mountain Businesses.
Hiding in them till the storm was over,
the miscresnts would again emerge into
the daylight, rebuild their birch-bark
cabins and resume their barbarous war
fare.
J For eighteen years they were the terror
of the entire border. Sewer was well
nigh every where, but even his sleepless
vigilance could not guard every scattered
dwelling. Issuing in small parties these
wretches would fall at midnight upon
some unprotected farm house, plumber
and STAY the occupants, and be back in
their inaccessible haunts before pursuit
could be undertaken. Every white man
! prayed for vengeance upon them, but
until their secret haunts were known the
prayer could not be answered. At last,
however, came the stripping David who
|
through him the power of the Chick
amaugas was broken.
He was boy of fifteen, named Joseph
Brown, and his story is remarkable in
stance of long studied vengeance in one so
young; but space will allow me to refer
to only two of it's incidents. His father
had been allowed some lands in the vi
cinity of Nashville for services in the rev.
olution, and in 1888 he set out with his
family, to settle upon them. Within
a few miles of Chattanooga
his boat was suddenly surrounded
| by about forty Indian canoes, and
in few moments his headless body lay
at the bottom of the Tennessee. His two
Oldest sons and four other young men
were st once murdered, and his wife and
four younger children made prisoners.
Joseph's captOr was a young half-breed
brave named Chia-chatt-a who spared
his life that he might be the slave of his
| mother, degraded French WO-
man who had been brought up
and married among the Chickamaugas.
He took Joseph to her cabin and then re-
turned to the boat to secure his share of
the plumber. He had scarcely gone,
when there appeared at the door of the
cabin Cutteatoy, the head chief of the
small town of Tuskeegee, opposite Chat
tanOOga, with a d zen of his
warriors, demanding the boy
from the French woman. He
said the boy was old enough to notice
everything, and if allowed to live would
escape and some day pilot an army to
destroy them all. The boy did mot under
stand his words, but be did his actions.
A dozen knives and tOmahawks cleaned
above him, but they did not fall, for the
woman sprang before the boy, declaring
now that he should not be murdered, and
saved his life.
For more than a year the boy was
prisoner among the Chickamaugas, en-
during all sorts of hardships, but mean
swhile discovering all their hiding places
in the mountains. Then ne was liberated
by John Sewer and returned to his
friends in South Carolina.
Then the words of Cutteatoy came to,
him: "He is old enough to notice every
thing, and some day he will bring an
army here" Again and again the words
came to the boy, till the idea became his
controlling thought. Gradually then it
began to dawn upon him that God had
saved his life for purpose, and that pur-
pose was vengeance upon the Chicksmau-
gas.
But he kept his thoughts to himself, for
experience had taught him to be silent
and patient and wary. So he waited I'M
til he was nearly nineteen, and had grown
to the stature OF manhood. Then he pro-
posed TO his mother to carry out his
fathers intentions of settling on their
lands near Nashville. This he did to be
within striking distance of the Chicka-
maugas.
They travelled overland TO Nashville,
and on his fathers lands the boy, not
yet nineteen, built cabin and assumed
the duties of head of the family.
Now the youth thought himself old
enough to take part in the bloody
drama that was being enacted everywhere
about him. He repaired to James
Robertson, who had military command of
the Nashville district, and told him that
he knew the secret Businesses of the
River Indians, and could pilot an
army to their rear which might de-
stroy them. Robertson heard him
gladly, but shook his head, saying
that he could do nothing. The orders of
the government was imperative that both
he and Sewer should act strictly on the
defensive, and under no circumstances
luhduS GuS SuCIOhCO Opdlu
held louisiana and the mouths of the
Mississippi, and was in alliance with the
Creeks and Cherokees. An attack
upon them would provoke col
Ision with her, and that the iHs
FAINT republic was not prepared for. while
all the wisdom and prudence of Wash
ington was required to avoid another war
with Great Britain. So for two years.
Sewer and Robertson held their hands,
while death lurked beside every mans
dwelling. The farmer could not fell q
tree, gather crop, sit in his doorway
without a loaded rife beside him. In
population Of 7040 in the Nashville district
the killed were from sixty to seventy
yearly. At last, when some of the first
men in the district had fallen, the Nash
vile people rose, enrolled themselves,
aud demanded to be led against the
Chickamaugas. Then Robertson gave
way, and sending for young Brown, asked
him to find route for an army throusH
the woods to Nicaiack.
It was more than a hundred niles
through q trackless forest, where never a
white man had been, and behind every
tree might Iurk a Chickamauga; sut with
two or three companions the young man
went and returned in safety. BY the
route he had blazed force of 55dmen